#just realized everyone i named plays taiko xd

[dakotabone1213]

Thank you @nonaicarnival765 @theinkbunny and @taikoerjshubofchaos for helping me

Thank you for listening to me

Thank you for your comfort

Thank you for making me feel like I'm enough

I love you guys <3

[sohmariku]

Toumyu: Tsuwamonodomo ga yume no ato [review]

I’m back from the theater! Finally I can visit the Toumyu tag again without fearing I’ll come across some major spoilers for the show! (Have’t looked into it ever since the new musical run started.)

God, once again I’m surprised how many people line up for goods! It’s just ridiculous, that line outside the theater! Thankfully the line inside the theater was a whole lot shorter. In the end I only ended up buying the pen light & two clear files. (since those came at random, I got Imanotsurugi and Hizamaru)

Our seats were on the 1st balcony, 6th row, almost to the far left side of the theater. The view was decent enough (would’ve loved to sit closer to the stage), but no problems there. (And seeing Shunya’s tweet just now, I’m guessing the guys two rows behind me (diagonally to the right) were actually half of the Bakumatsu cast... xD Absolutely didn’t realized that in the theater! They snuck in when the performance started and snuck out just before it ended. The only reason I even noticed their existence was because Shunya started waving pretty frantically at them when he walked into our aisle during the live portion of the show. In those few seconds I looked around I didn’t recognize them though for who they were...) xD

Good, let’s jump into the review! I’m trying to keep it relatively spoiler free for the first bit. Once I go on spoiling the whole story, I’ll give a warning!

First impression of our cast. Well, I guess the Sanjo swords are the same as always. Thanks to the story, the guys did get to expand on their characters and I think we’ve seen new sides to each character. But essentially their are still the same. Higekiri and Hizamaru are... good. I think their personalities aren’t (or didn’t feel like) as outspoken as the other characters, so I find it hard to form a real opinion on them. Their acting was good, their singing wasn’t perfect, but all in all I liked the performances of all these guys. 

The stage looked quite different from earlier performances. Still stairs, but different. I really liked it, also how they worked with the projections. For the 2nd act they actually changed part of the stage to have different stairs. Unfortunately those didn’t look quite as nice. 

Speaking of the 2nd act. Their clothes... overall I do like them. I have mixed feelings about their outer layer (it just looks rather odd), but the two inner layers were actually pretty nice! I also liked how they mixed up the “flow” of the live part. (or at least it really felt like that to me) If I remember correctly it was:  Mikazuki Solo, group song, talk segment, Higekiri/Hizamaru duet,  Kogitsunemaru solo, Higawari song, Taiko performance, Kanki no Hana (dancing with a yukata as a prop), Iwatoshi/Imanotsurugi duet, Touken Ranbu. We didn’t get any “Sanjo rule” skit, but we did get Higekiri making us teach him his brother’s name by shouting it through the hall (just to forget it right after again) xD And really just as I was thinking Iwatoshi and Imanotsurugi wouldn’t be getting their solo song, they suddenly had it after Kanki no Hana. I’m not quite sure which of these new songs I like best. They were all pretty great.

The songs of the 1st act were all right. They’re not very memorable to me at the moment. Imanotsurugi had a beautiful rendition of “Nagoritsuki” (wait, is that the title of the song?), we get a great song narrating the fight between the Heike and Genji family and I absolutely love the ending song. (The harmonies!) Kogitsunemru’s solo was pretty fun too. But I really can’t remember much about the songs other than that...

Good, let’s talk a bit about the story of the show without spoiling it too much. Well, I guess everyone could probably guess this much, but... Higekiri and Hizamaru manifest at the Citadel and eventually they are sent off with the Sanjo guys as a team of six to the time of Yoshitsune and Yoritomo to protect history. I think this musical doesn’t focus that much of protecting history. At least not in a way we see one of the characters struggling with the events going on. At least, not in a way we’ve seen before. I think the struggles are mostly with/between themselves. If I’m going to be really short about it, I’d say Iwatoshi is constantly worried Imanotsurugi is going to get emotionally hurt and he tries to keep the truth of the situation from him, while Imanotsurugi is slowly catching on. Higekiri and Hizamaru are just there. They go about their business and mingle with the Sanjo swords once in a while. Mikazuki... um, does what’s he’s best at. Doing whatever the fuck he wants! And Kogitsunemaru tries to keep everything together. Now guess who the captain of this team was! ...sorry, if you answered Kogitsunemaru,  that’s the wrong answer!

Um, I guess I’ll just start spoiling the details now for as far as I remember, so if you don’t want to be spoiled, you’d better stop reading now!

SPOILERS AHEAD! YOU’RE WARNED!

So, we start the musical with a solo song of Kogitsunemaru. ( あどうつ聲) I didn’t entirely catch on to what this song was about, but it was pretty nice. Apparently the saniwa had asked Kogi to perform a dance for him, which he only does when something’s bothering him, so Kogi inquires after that when he’s done dancing. Seems the saniwa is worried the manifestation of Higekiri and Hizamaru may cause Imanotsurugi some emotional discomfort. So, he asks Kogi to look after Ima.  Um, my mind already gets really foggy here, so let’s see what else I remember ... I think we have two storylines starting from here. The first one is the one of Iwatoshi and Imanotsurugi. Based on the events of Atuskashiyama and the appearance/memories of Hige and Hiza, Iwa is starting to realize that maybe he and Ima don’t actually exist in the current version of history. He’s afraid this may cause some serious dismay to Ima, so he tries to keep this a secret. Ima doesn’t seem to be catching on to the fact that he should’ve known Hige and Hiza from long ago, while he doesn’t. Iwa asks Hige and Hiza to cooperate in keeping the secret and they are more than happy to comply, because they don’t want to cause Ima any harm. Of course Ima starts catching on to this eventually, causing enough confusion that leads him to leaving on a Kiwame journey at the end of the musical. (Boom, spoiler!) At the same time we basically have Mikazuki seemingly trying to fuck up History. Without telling anyone Mika contacts Yoritomo and Yasuhira and tells them whatever the fuck is supposed to be happening according to history and basically appears to have threatened Yoritomo to murder his younger brother, Yoshitsune. Kogi warns Mika not to do unnecessary things, but when he finds out what Mika actually did, he is not amused and decides to make good on his promise and break Mika in pieces. Great fighting scene there! That is, until Higekiri breaks up the fight, because in the end Kogi and Mika are after the same thing. And he knows, because he was Yoritomo’s sword when Mika came to Yori, so he has the memories of whatever the fuck went on between those two. Still, Mika isn’t very eager to answer any of Kogi’s questions, so Hige starts pretending to be Mika and starts answering questions for him. (This was so super funny!) At the end of the musical Mika and Kogi put aside their fight. Kogi: “I don’t agree with what you did, but you did the right thing. If we both protect history in a way that suits us best, all will be fine.” (or something like that) Mika: “Would you like some candy?” Kogi looks around. Kogi loves candy. Now he’s friends with Mika again. Kogi: “You’re not getting out of farm duty though this time!” (Mika ran off when he had farm duty earlier in the musical) ...still, Mika somewhat fucked up history. Not all history is exactly clear, so Mika changed it to the version where Yoshi and Benkei actually get to live. Yet, that’s also a version where Ima (and iwa) don’t exist still. (I was nearly crying!) 

So, in the middle of all this we get into discussion about existence. Do we exist? What does it mean to exist? At some point Iwa seems sure that Hige and Hiza are trying to harm Ima, but this is all an misunderstanding, so they make up after a heartfelt conversation. 

Other random scene I remember is probably the moment they arrive in History and decided to split up the team (Or actually, Captain Ima decides to split the team. Imanotsurugi actually begged the saniwa to make him captain, because he’s sure a situation like before (Atsukashiyama) won’t happen again. The saniwa agrees, mentioning he was planning to make Ima captain all along, because Ima is most suited for the job considering the situation.) But yes, they split the team and Mika decides it’ll be Mika/Ima/Hiza & Iwa/Kogi/Hige. (if I’m not mistaken in my memory) Kogi doesn’t quite like this and ask Mikazuki “But why aren’t we together in the same team?” And Mika goes like “Oh~...” *giving the impression Kogi is in love with him* and Kogi is like “No, not like that!” Then Hige and Mika start teasing Kogi by pretty much rubbing against him. ... “That’s why you don’t want to have both of us on your team”. Kogi reluctantly agrees to the team formations. It’s not like they’re apart for long anyway.

Other funny scenes are between Iwa and Ima who’re practicing for their play about the story of Yoshi and Benkei. Yeah, it’s like having a performance in a performance, it was pretty funny and cute. Especially when Iwa uses the practice as an excuse to get Ima away from Hige and Hiza. 

There’s also this really cute scene between Mika and Hige, when they are basically mirroring each others movements. These guys are apparently more alike in character than you’d think. That’s also why Hige could flawlessly pretend to be Mika and answer Kogi’s questions in his stead.

Um, yes... so in the end we mostly follow Yoshitsune’s history from the moment he meets with his brother Yoritomo, through the war between the Heike and Genji families up until the point that Yasuhira tries to kill Yoshitsune on the orders of Yoritomo. They have this really great song narrating the events of the war and fights, and then the “death” scene of Yoshitsune and Benkei is basically a recap rom Atsukashiyama. “Benkei, buy me some time. I’m not letting Yasuhira kill me”, “Meet me in the next world”, etc. That scene. Except they eventually both live xD

I think I’m forgetting about some really awesome things, but I should really go to bed now. ^^ Considering this musical is pretty long, it actually felt surprisingly short. Can’t wait for the moment we get a (live-)stream, so I can watch this again and catch on to the details a bit more!

Well, first we’ll have SRS2017!